In Argentina, Pentecostalism had a breakthrough in the early 1980s, and today more than 10 per cent of the population are Pentecostals. The revival coincided with a socio-political transformation of Argentinean society. After half a century of dictatorships and Peronism, democracy was restored, and structural changes paved the way for a certain “autonomisation” of politics, law, economy, science and religion. The "new" form of society that developed resembles what in this study is called a Western model, which to a large degree is currently being diffused on a global scale. This work examines the new religious sphere and how Pentecostals relate to society at large, and the political and judicial sphere in particular.

Social systems theory and an idea of communication as constitutive of social spheres, such as religious, political and judicial ones, form the theoretical foundation for the study. Methods that have been used are fieldwork, interviews and analyses of written material. It is concluded that evangelisation and transformation are of major concern to Pentecostals in contemporary Argentina and that this follows a global trend. Evangelisation has always been important to, even a hallmark of, Pentecostalism. What has become as important is the urge for transformation, of the individual, the family and society. This leads to increased socio-political engagement. However, Pentecostals do not have a “fixed” idea of how society should be organised, i.e., they do not yet have a full-fledged political theology, a public theology or what could be called a Pentecostal ideology. This is mainly because they experience a lack of “compatibility” between the Pentecostal and the political communication. Their approaches to socio-political concerns seem to be based on an understanding of certain “values” as the fundamental building block of society.

This is a comprehensive study on expressions of modality in one of the largest Turkic languages, Kazakh, as it is spoken in China. Kazakh is the official language of the Republic of Kazakhstan and is furthermore spoken by about one and a half million people in China in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and in Aksai Kazakh Autonomous County in Gansu Province.The method employed is empirical, i.e. data-oriented. The modal expressions in Kazakh are analyzed in a theoretical framework essentially based on the works of Lars Johanson. The framework defines semantic notions of modality from a functional and typological perspective. The modal volition, deontic evaluation, and epistemic evaluation express attitudes towards the propositional content and are conveyed in Kazakh by grammaticalized moods, particles and lexical devices. All these categories are treated in detail, and ample examples of their different usages are provided with interlinear annotation. The Kazakh expressions are compared with corresponding ones used in other Turkic languages. Contact influences of Uyghur and Chinese are also dealt with.The data used in this study include texts recorded by the author in 20102012, mostly in the northern regions of Xinjiang, as well as written texts published in Kazakhstan and China. The written texts represent different genres: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and texts published on the Internet. Moreover, examples have been elicited from native speakers of Kazakh and Uyghur.

The Appendix contains nine texts recorded by the author in the Kazakh-speaking regions of Xinjiang, China. These texts illustrate the use of many of the items treated in the study.

The main purpose of this study is to make a critical examination of Rudolf Bultmann´s (1884–1976) and Wolfhart Pannenberg´s (b. 1928) interpretations of the resurrection of Jesus. Bultmann is best known for seeking to demythologize the miracles of the New Testament. Pannenberg has gained much attention for arguing that the resurrection of Jesus is an event in chronological history.

In this thesis I first present Bultmann´s and Pannenberg´s interpretations of the resurrection of Jesus. In order to help the reader understand the context in which these interpretations were made, I give a brief sketch of the German theological setting. Second, I compare the theologies of Bultmann and Pannenberg from the concept of background theory, principles of interpretation, exegetical reasoning, the meaning of the resurrection and what it means to accept the resurrection. Third, I categorize different ways that the resurrection could be interpreted today. Fourth, I critically discuss the way that Bultmann and Pannenberg argue and give some proposals for how their theologies can be developed. Developing the theology of Bultmann I give more attention to chronological history than he does. I also make alterations in the way he understands God´s action. Concerning Pannenberg I discuss the importance of rational arguments in his theology. I argue that the resurrection should be interpreted from the perspective of a faith or an interpretation which seeks understanding.

Focusing on the memories of Estonian refugees moving to Sweden in the wake of World War II, I analyze the concepts of “memory space” and history within the framework of the Escape as a master narrative. Following the research participants to the sites of their memories in Estonia and Sweden today, raised the questions what constitutes a lived memory space, and how is history defined within it?

Through a combination of a phenomenological analysis of memory’s lived ex­perience, using Walter Benjamin’s concept of montage as radical remembering and its dialectical relation to history, I show how embodied memories shape their own space, a space not always framed by historical master narratives and identity posi­tions, but rather a searching space that is always changing. Dealing with the politics of place and representations, these memories are constantly loaded and unloaded with meaning. Yet the space of lived memory is not always a creation of meaning. Walking around, searching for traces, a memory space confronts the place and maps its own geography. It turns to a spatial and temporal flow, which intertwines place and experience, and erases the past and future as homogeneous categories. It is a living space of memory, rather than a memorial space of representations.

The analysis focuses further on the tensions between remembering as a dialogue with history and memory’s ongoing acts of embodied experience. The position of in-betweenness appears in these stories of escape, not as a state of in-between home and away, past and present, but rather as an ongoing space-making process be­tween different modes and layers of memory. This is a process aware of the constant changes in the understandings of both history and personal experiences, intertwin­ing these new interpretations with embodied memory and thereby constantly add­ing new layers of experience to it. Memory’s tracing illuminates a memory poetics of the meanwhile and the in-between, which refuses historical closure.

During the period c. 1720-1900 a large quantity of descriptions of rural areas in Sweden were set down on paper. Some 700 local descriptions were printed at the time or have appeared in print during the twentieth century. The most common geographical unit for local descriptions is the parish. As a rule the author was a public servant, and the clergy in particular were industrious local descriptive writers.

In part the aim of this thesis is to present the Swedish local description projects and local descriptive literature as a phenomenon of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A further aim is to investigate the way the folklife descriptions which come into most of the local descriptions are constituted for the period c. 1750-1850.

The local descriptions which form the main object of analysis and discussion in the thesis comprise contemporary delineations which came into being in order to achieve an economic-topographical description of the country, where agriculture and the individual economy of the common man were the focus of attention. These descriptions to a certain extent define the problems the authors associate with the economic life of the countryside and way of life of the population.

Local descriptions constitute a particular category of geographical delineation and have either come into being on the author's own initiative, in reply to a particular institution or the questionnaire of a particular person, or as an academic dissertation. The authors of local descriptions are in most cases connected with the area they describe. The work was mainly carried out by voluntary effort.

The idea of the need for a national and methodically organised inventorying of resources associated with the physical environment was the most important reason for undertaking local description projects. These Swedish local descriptions were one of several important cornerstones in the endeavours of the State to increase the population, income from taxes, and welfare in general. Local descriptions constituted materialised visions of optimism for growth, and a better and happier future for the country and its inhabitants, in the modern Sweden which was beginning to emerge in the mid-eighteenth century. Another overall aim was to improve the moral status of the peasantry and promote in them a moral and virtuous way of life. The enlightenment of the common man thereby became a didactic matter, touched on in many local descriptions. This process was not unique to Sweden; corresponding efforts took place in a whole host of other European countries.

The selection of sixty or so local descriptions studied in this thesis are characterised to a great extent by dualistic tendencies on the part of the public servants in their writings about, and interpretations of, peasant character and the state of the agricultural economy. Descriptions of the noble and exemplary true Swedish peasant faithful to his king, hospitable and honest are combined with descriptions of those same people's immodest consumption of spirits, lack of foresight, inclination to the "superstitious", and pernicious love of material things. In actual fact local descriptive writings consisted of an encounter: on the one side between more abstract and political discourses which contained thoughts of an ideal social organisation and the true nature of a population; while on the other side were the everyday experiences of separate writers vis a vis the qualities and situations of the local peasant population, compiled from their position as objectively observing public servants.

This thesis aims at contributing to a critical discussion on the supposedly far-reaching secularity of Sweden on the one hand, and on the incongruence and inconsistency of lived religion on the other. At the center are people referred to as semi-secular Swedes – a group that is often neglected in the study of religion. These people do not go to church or get involved in any other alternative organized spiritual activities, neither are they actively opposed to religion or entirely indifferent to it. Most of them describe the ways they are – or are not – religious as in line with the majority patterns in Swedish society.

The study is qualitative in method and the material has been gathered through interviews and a questionnaire. It offers a close reading of 28 semi-secular Swedes’ ways of talking about and relating to religion, particularly in reference to their everyday lives and their own experiences, and it analyzes the material with a focus on incongruences.

By exploring how the term religion is employed vernacularly by the respondents, the study pinpoints one particular feature in the material, namely simultaneity. The concept of simultaneity is descriptive and puts emphasis on a ‘both and’ approach in (1) the way the respondents ascribe meaning to the term religion, (2) how they talk about themselves in relation to different religious designations, and (3) how they interpret experiences that they single out as ‘out-of-the-ordinary’. These simultaneities are explained and theorized through analyses focusing on intersubjective and discursive processes.

In relation to theorizing on religion and religious people this study offers empirical material that nuance a dichotomous understanding of ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’. In relation to methodology it is argued that the salience of simultaneity in the material shows that when patterns of religiosity among semi-secular Swedes are studied there is a need to be attentive to expressions of complexity, contradiction and incongruity.

In the early 1860s three Swedes, Nils Wilhelm Mitander,Julius Ramsay and Gustaf Wittenström, were engaged by theBritish to build and run charcoal-based ironworks in India.These works, the Burwai Iron Works of the British Government inthe case of Mitander and the privately owned Kumaon Iron Worksin the case of Ramsay and Wittenström, were both to bebased on the most modern European technology. The projects werepioneering in Indian ironmaking. The ambitions were high andstakes big, but after only a few years the projects were closedand the Swedes returned home.Landscapes of Technology Transferpresents a detailedstudy of the Kumaon and Burwai Iron Works, from their firstconception to their final closure. The investigation isbasically empirical and a fundamental question is: Why were theworks never brought into full and continuous production?

The ironworks projects should be considered as processes oftechnology transfer rather than fully fledged and completedtransfers. In spite of this lack of success, or maybe becauseof it, the history of the ironworks and the Swedes also forms afruitful case to put other questions of wide relevance. Itexposes workings and effects of colonialism and offers anexplanation of the late development of India's iron and steelindustry and analyses of the complex totality forming theprerequisites for a successful transfer of technology. The longtraditions of bloomery ironmaking in India and ismarginalisation is also discussed.

Landscapes of Technology Transferis a comprehensiveempirical study. From a local and individual perspective ittraces lines of connection across boundaries of time andgeography. The historical landscapes of technology transfer aredescribed in their cultural, social, economic and politicaldimensions and the thesis underlines the importance of a closeacquaintance with local settings and conditions, where historyis manifested in a physical presence. The remains of theironworks and theirlocal landscapes in present-day India areused as a central source for writing their histories. There isalso a strong emphasis on the use of photographs and drawingsas sources.

The outcome of the projects was the result of the interplaybetween the local and the global, between a diversity ofconcrete factors influencing the construction of the works andtheir running and their colonial character. The studyemphasises the importance of technological systems andnetworks, both on a micro and a macro level. On a local leveldemanding logistics, a sometimes adverse climate, theprocurement of charcoal and iron ore in sufficient quantitiesand the build up of knowledge of ironmaking posed serious butnot insurmountable difficulties. Most obstacles were overcomealready during the first few years of the 1860s, the period ofthe Swedes, but to put the works into full and continuousproduction would have needed perseverance and purposefulefforts to support and protect the iron production, at leastduring an initial period. In the end the position of India as acolonial dependency, subjected to the primacy of Britishinterests, set the limits of the projects.

When children encounter new subjects in school, they are also faced with new ways of using language. Learning science thus means learning the language of science, and writing is one of the ways this is accomplished. The present study investigates writing in natural sciences in grades 5 and 8 in Swedish schools. Major theoretical influences for these investigations are found within the socio-cultural, dialogical and social semiotic perspectives on language use.

The study is based on texts written by 97 students, interviews around these texts and observations from 16 different classroom practices. Writing is seen as a situated practice; therefore analysis is carried out of the activities surrounding the texts. The student texts are analysed in terms of genre and in relation to their abstraction, density and use of expansions. This analysis shows among other things that the texts show increasing abstraction and density with increasing age, whereas the text structure and the use of expansions do not increase.

It is also argued that a central point in school writing must be the students’ way of talking about their texts. Analysis of interviews with the students is thus carried out in terms of text movability. The results from this analysis indicate that students find it difficult to talk about their texts. They find it hard to express the main content of the text, as well as to discuss it’s function and potential readers.

Previous studies argue that writing constitutes a potential for learning. In the material studied in this thesis, this potential learning tool is not used to any large extent. To be able to participate in natural sciences in higher levels, students need to take part in practices where the specialized language of natural science is used in writing as well as in speech.

The thesis considers three women conferences arranged by the National Council of Women of Sweden (NCWS) in Stockholm at the turn of the 20th century. NCWS was a branch of the International Council of Women and at its height it was an umbrella-organisation for about forty Swedish women organisations. The focus is on the role of the conferences as arenas for women who wanted to prove their ability and competence in society. The content, the form and the function of the conferences are analysed.

The question whether the conferences arranged by the NCWS reflected the ideas, dilemmas and strategies of the bourgeois women’s movement is addressed. A larger historical development is illuminated – the formation of the bourgeois women movements for the public sphere in the process of modernity. The thesis explores different theories and shows how the concepts of class, gender, public sphere, modernity and trans-nationalism were dealt with at the conferences.

The women conferences have been treated as manifestations; as a quintessence of the ideas and ambitions of the movement. The thesis asserts that the ideology of the movements was formulated and expressed not only in spoken words, but also in festivities, symbols and sisterhood. The class identity was manifested in the form of which the conferences were conducted. On the one hand, the conference women showed loyalty to the conservative society and the rigid class position. On the other hand, the conference initiators wanted to improve women’s opportunities of becoming citizens and to move the boarders between the public and the private. Ideologies such as Internationalism and Scandinavism became important in creating a collective identity.

The thesis considers three women conferences arranged by the National Council of Women of Sweden (NCWS) in Stockholm at the turn of the 20th century. NCWS was a branch of the International Council of Women and at its height it was an umbrella-organisation for about forty Swedish women organisations. The focus is on the role of the conferences as arenas for women who wanted to prove their ability and competence in society. The content, the form and the function of the conferences are analysed.

The question whether the conferences arranged by the NCWS reflected the ideas, dilemmas and strategies of the bourgeois women’s movement is addressed. A larger historical development is illuminated – the formation of the bourgeois women movements for the public sphere in the process of modernity. The thesis explores different theories and shows how the concepts of class, gender, public sphere, modernity and trans-nationalism were dealt with at the conferences.

The women conferences have been treated as manifestations; as a quintessence of the ideas and ambitions of the movement. The thesis asserts that the ideology of the movements was formulated and expressed not only in spoken words, but also in festivities, symbols and sisterhood. The class identity was manifested in the form of which the conferences were conducted. On the one hand, the conference women showed loyalty to the conservative society and the rigid class position. On the other hand, the conference initiators wanted to improve women’s opportunities of becoming citizens and to move the boarders between the public and the private. Ideologies such as Internationalism and Scandinavism became important in creating a collective identity.

Chinese art of the 1990s responded to the many changes in the environment and thereby to changes in personal lives. Many Chinese artists of the time were therefore concerned with their selves and their works reveal explorations of personal identity. The medium of photography proved particularly suitable for expressing individuality in a rapidly transforming urban society. A growing number of independent conceptual photographic artists departed from official documentary photography, fetching inspiration from international art and postmodern theory. The bridal couple as a motif in conceptual Chinese photography started to appear in the mid-1990s, coinciding with the development of the consumer society, growing market freedom, foreign imports and the creation of an art market. The bridal couple in conceptual tableaux reveals an intriguing mixed appearance: the images introduce subtle recognition of signs and symbols from both near and afar, calling to mind issues of hybridity. Such hybridity is also something which makes interpretation of these images complex. By means of deep-analysis of eight conceptual photographs by seven artists, this study employs Homi K. Bhabha’s concepts to try out a method in which the images are located in the dynamic process of culture, that is in the Third Space. This method opens up the cross-cultural paradoxes as sites for interpretation: thus the focus of this study lies in unlocking the images to interpret them in their hybrid condition. An important challenge has been to lay bare how works with such mixed appearances communicate in their own right, and not as mere imitations of canonised works of art. By evaluating a number of foreign and domestic symbols in the images, new meanings are revealed, depicting a variety of issues tied to the Chinese cultural context. There are many conceivable reasons why artists in China should have adopted foreign symbols as form of expression; a context is outlined so that this type of art can be discussed from the point of view of the history of photography, marriage customs, bridal portraiture and the art market.

Today, computation serves as an important intermediary agent for the integration of analyses and the constraints of materialisation into design processes. Research efforts in the field have emphasised digital continuity and conformity between different aspects of a building project. Such an approach can limit the potential for significant discoveries, because the expression of architectural form is reduced to the varying tones of one fabrication technique and simulation at a time. This dissertation argues that disparate sets of digital and physical models are needed to incorporate multiple constraints into the exploration, and that the way the designer links them to one another significantly impacts the potential for arriving at significant discoveries. Discoveries are made in the moment of bridging between models, representational mediums, and affiliated processes.

This dissertation examines the capacity of algorithm—as a basis for computation—to diversify and expand the design exploration by enabling the designer to link disparate models and different representational mediums. It is developed around a series of design experiments that question how computation and digital fabrication can be used to diversify design ideation, foster significant discoveries, and at the same time increase flexibility for the designer’s operation in the design process. The experiments reveal the interdependence of the mediums of design—algorithm, geometry, and material—and the designer’s mode of operation. They show that each medium provides the designer with a particular way of incorporating constraints into the exploration. From the way the designer treats these mediums and the design process, two types of exploration are identified: goal oriented and open-ended. In the former, the exploration model is shaped by the designer’s objective to reach a specified goal through the selection of mediums, models, and tools. In the latter, the design process itself informs the designer’s intention. From the kinds of interdependencies that are created between mediums in each experiment, three main exploration models emerge: circular and uniform, branched and incremental, and parallel and bidirectional.

Finally, this dissertation argues that the theoretical case for integral computational design and fabrication must be revised to go beyond merely applying established computational processes to encompass the designer and several design mediums. The new model of design exploration is a cooperation between algorithm, geometry, materials, tools, and the designer. For the exploration to be novel, the designer must play a significant role by choosing one medium over another when formulating the design problem and establishing design drivers from the set of constraints, by linking the design mediums, by translating between design representations, and by describing the key aspects of the exploration in terms of algorithms.

The American philosopher Michael Walzer has been regarded as one of the most influential theorists in the field of distributive justice since the publication of Spheres of Justice in 1983. However, despite the popularity, his theory is often misunderstood or said to suffer from serious shortcomings.

The aim of the dissertation is to present and defend a clearer and stronger version of Walzer’s theory of distributive justice. After a brief sketch of Walzer’s early works, in which important concepts were introduced and developed, the mature theory is analysed. By subjecting the key areas of Walzer’s theory to a critical and reconstructive philosophical analysis, a stronger and more detailed account is gained. Important ideas and concepts such as community, consent, interpretation, social meanings, complex equality and minimal morality are discussed, criticised and revised in order to strengthen the theory. In addition, a comparison is made between John Rawls’s method of wide reflective equilibrium and Walzer’s interpretative method; it is argued that the methods of the two philosophers exhibit considerable similarities.

This thesis is based on the demise of industry that has led to a search for new solutions for the survival of smaller communities traditionally dependent on industrial production. In two local industrial communities in central and northern Sweden, Surahammar and Timrå, industrial dependency has gradually been replaced by a dependency on immigration, largely from the neighboring cities of Västerås and Sundsvall. In the changed order of these local communities, old and new inhabitants have had to negotiate positions in order to co-exist. The objective of the thesis is to present how old and new inhabitants relate to and are attached to the local community as a place in which they reside and live their lives. In focus is an interest in the local identity construction of the inhabitants, i.e. how they identify with the place in which they dwell and live their everyday lives, with and in reference to each other and the outside world. Another concern relates to just how different local options for identification can be for individuals and for collective groups of people.

Adopting a phenomenological and constructivist perspective, I regard local place as something that both old and new inhabitants are shaped by and shape in a collective process based on contrasts. The analysis is based on empirical data gathered during several years of fieldwork in the studied communities. The empirical data mainly consists of interviews and participant observations with old and new inhabitants in Surahammar and Timrå. Moreover, biographical literature, newspaper articles and data retrieved from the Internet have contributed important insights into how the local place is experienced and valued among the different groups of inhabitants. The thesis recognises the values and symbols that old and new inhabitants agree upon and that often result in spatial attachments. In addition, ideological, social and cultural differences are depicted as factors that shape a place as old and new inhabitants articulate local attachment and identification based on different grounds, needs and dreams.

The Social Democratic party of Sweden (SAP) was from its starting point in late 19th century oppositional to the Swedish Church and its position in Swedish society. But soon two different views were formed. The first view was to cut all ties between state and church. The second view was to perform a democratic reformation of the Church. The SAP have since long engaged itself in church politics and governing on different levels.

This thesis deals with the ecclesiology of the SAP as presented by the party executive in normative outlines for church-politics. The investigation starts with the first published outlines in 1979 and ends with the outlines published in 1996, the year after the decision of the Swedish parliament to make a juridical separation between state and church by jan 1 2000.

These political outlines form a framework for the party´s local, regional och central political activities in the Swedish Church. The starting point is the introduction of the party program and the democratization of the structure of Society. The structure of the Church should therefore also be democratized. Those emplyed by the Church are also to support this democratized structure. The goal of this process is to make the Church available and reachable for everyone in Sweden, also in a new cultural situation when people and church no longer can be looked upon as one unity. The Swedish Church has, says the SAP, therefore no right to set up rules for who can and who can not become a member of the Church.

This thesis consists of two separate yet connected studies which investigate how some adult second language speakers of Swedish with various backgrounds reflect on their experiences of language use. The studies are based on the same empirical data, which consists of questionnaires, diaries, essays and observations, but primarily of conversations conducted with a time interval of six years. This data is analysed from a theoretical framework based on Paul Ricœur’s ideas of interpretation, narrative analysis and identity creation, which recur as a leitmotif throughout the thesis.

In the first study, data from three second language speakers are analysed by means of the concept of narrative identity, shedding light on the interplay between a static and a dynamic identity. The result is presented in the form of life narratives, which are commented on in relation to those strategies the participants express in relation to their second language use. The analysis shows a development over time moving from defiance to acceptance, from avoidance to flexibility and from planning to simplification. Adult language learning stands out as an arduous and time-consuming process with major consequences for the learner’s ego, a conclusion confirmed and clarified in the metaphor analysis of the second study in which language learning is related to hard work, a constant struggle and a long and strenuous journey. Here it also becomes evident that the participants equate language learning and language use to physical exertion and challenge as well as to individual achievement. This becomes particularly clear in the linked chains of metaphors in which language use is compared with skiing down the steepest slopes or appearing on stage.

The participants in both studies are quoted by means of an ethnopoetic method which aims to bring out the creative aspects of their language use and to give second language speakers a voice – a voice which does not need to be corrected and gives the narratives a new dimension.

This thesis is about the Swedish landscape painter Elias Martin (1739-1818). The main interest is in his depictions of nature, landscape images and topographical views. Chronologically, it covers the period 1760 to 1810. The first part puts Martin's artistic achievement in a historiographic perspective and presents an overview of his artistic career - from his birthplace Stockholm to Paris and from there to London, where he successfully established himself on the English art scene in the 1770s. Returning to his native Sweden in 1780, he soon emerged as the country's leading landscapist of the period.

In the second part of the thesis, a study is presented of Martin's relationship to the art markets of England and Sweden, and in the third an attempt is made, through the medium of a specific genre of Swedish eighteenth-century literature - travel writings - to gain a deeper insight into the attitudes and values of the period. Here, the focus of interest is on different ways of viewing nature and landscape art in Sweden in the late eighteenth century. On the basis of this discussion, an attempt is made to reconstruct a Swedish 'period eye', specific to the upper-class culture of the Gustavian age.

These discussions of the importance of the market and of a Swedish period eye form the basis for an answer to the overarching question of this thesis, concerning the relationship between Martin's images and contemporary perceptions of nature. From the conclusions drawn, it becomes clear that different ways of relating to landscape existed side by side. The attitudes discernible in the artist's pictures, as in the travel writings of the period, are diverse and contradictory, complicating an understanding of the eighteenth century's view of nature as something uniform. Elias Martin's art thus illuminates the many vantage points and variations in the Gustavian era's feeling for nature.

Is literary experience of any practical relevance to the clinician? This is the overall question addressed by this investigation, which starts by tracing the historical roots of scientific medicine. These are found to be intimately linked to a form of rationality associated with the scientific revolution of the 17th century and with “modernity”. Medical practice, however, is dependent also on another form of rationality associated with what Stephen Toulmin calls “the epistemology of the biographical”. The very core of clinical medicine is shown to be the clinical encounter, an interpretive meeting where the illness experience is at the centre of attention. The physician can reach the goals of medicine only by developing clinical judgement. Clinical judgement is subjected to close analysis and is assumed to be intimately connected to the form of knowledge Aristotle called phronesis.

In order to explore how literature – drama, novels, poetry – may be related to clinical judgement, a view of literature is presented that emphasizes literature as an invitation to the reader, to be met responsibly and responsively. Literature carries a potential for a widened experience, for a more nuanced perception of reality – and this potential is suggested to be ethically relevant to the practice of medicine. The “narrative rationality” of a literary text constitutes a complement to the rationality pervading scientific medicine.

The final step in my analysis is a closer exploration of the potential of the literary text to contribute to the growth of clinical judgement, in relation to the challenges of everyday clinical work. Some of the conditions that may facilitate such growth are outlined, but it is also shown that full empirical evidence for the beneficial effects of reading on the clinician reader is beyond reach.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the signification of identitary discourses in the novel Sefarad: Una novela de novelas by Antonio Muñoz Molina and determine to what extent these discourses represent and respond to identitary discourses in contemporary Spanish society. The analysis focuses on three principal questions: how is the narrative constructed, what is conveyed as a result, and what is the aim of the narrative.

Identity is understood as a social construction, an individual and continuous process of assuming, defining, negotiating and maintaining cultural identities, elements of the surrounding world that provide the individual with a sense of meaning (Fromm 1956; Castiñeira 2005; Marsella 2008).

The novel consists of different stories that manifest the social impact of the totalitarian regimes in Europe during the twentieth century, told by a diversity of voices. First, the analysis deals with the structure of the text, examined through the model of mise en abyme (Dällenbach 1989). Secondly, the significations of transition, transgression (Lotman 1978) and, analogically, stigmatization are deduced (Goffman 1972), processes that are related to the effects of the frontier as a metaphor (Pratt Ewing 1998) and to limit situations (Jaspers 1974). Thirdly, the study stresses the representation of the past, in which trauma, melancholy and mourning are significant (Benjamin 1992; Freud 1986).

The conclusions confirm the claim that the novel corresponds to humanity’s treasure of suffering (Leidschatz), a cultural possession that thematizes the processes of memory and oblivion (Assmann 1999), represented through stories told by the victims of intolerance at different levels. The text is accordingly conceived as a mirror through which the narrator constructs his identity as a writer and transmits meaning to the reader by providing the opportunity to reflect upon identity issues today.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the signification of identitary discourses in the novel Sefarad: Una novela de novelas by Antonio Muñoz Molina and determine to what extent these discourses represent and respond to identitary discourses in contemporary Spanish society. The analysis focuses on three principal questions: how is the narrative constructed, what is conveyed as a result, and what is the aim of the narrative.

Identity is understood as a social construction, an individual and continuous process of assuming, defining, negotiating and maintaining cultural identities, elements of the surrounding world that provide the individual with a sense of meaning (Fromm 1956; Castiñeira 2005; Marsella 2008).

The novel consists of different stories that manifest the social impact of the totalitarian regimes in Europe during the twentieth century, told by a diversity of voices. First, the analysis deals with the structure of the text, examined through the model of mise en abyme (Dällenbach 1989). Secondly, the significations of transition, transgression (Lotman 1978) and, analogically, stigmatization are deduced (Goffman 1972), processes that are related to the effects of the frontier as a metaphor (Pratt Ewing 1998) and to limit situations (Jaspers 1974). Thirdly, the study stresses the representation of the past, in which trauma, melancholy and mourning are significant (Benjamin 1992; Freud 1986).

The conclusions confirm the claim that the novel corresponds to humanity’s treasure of suffering (Leidschatz), a cultural possession that thematizes the processes of memory and oblivion (Assmann 1999), represented through stories told by the victims of intolerance at different levels. The text is accordingly conceived as a mirror through which the narrator constructs his identity as a writer and transmits meaning to the reader by providing the opportunity to reflect upon identity issues today.

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to examine how parents in Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-first century use the process of naming as a resource to contribute to the creation of various identities for both themselves and their child. It is based on a two-component study — a postal survey and qualitative group interviews, both conducted in the city of Göteborg, Sweden — and includes parents with children born during 2007 and 2008. By combining different sources (names, surveys and interviews) and different methods (quantitative and qualitative), this study attempts to elucidate how first names and choices of first names can be given various social meanings. In contrast to previous socio-onomastic studies, this study considers not only whether naming contains any social variation, but also how and why such variation arises. The theoretical framework is a combination of onomastic, sociolinguistic, identity-theoretical and interactional theories. The results demonstrate that parents’ choice of first names for their children is an important social act. Through name choices and discussions of these choices, parents create what is known as social positioning, which in turn contributes to the creation of certain identities both for themselves and their child. A number of resources are identified which are used by parents to create different social positionings. This study also demonstrates how both macro-societal structures and interactional aspects influence this social positioning. Finally, this study argues that the observed social variation is best explained by the parents’ desire to identify with and contribute to the creation of different models for society, in which varying social values and attributes are important.

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to examine how parents in Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-first century use the process of naming as a resource to contribute to the creation of various identities for both themselves and their child. It is based on a two-component study — a postal survey and qualitative group interviews, both conducted in the city of Göteborg, Sweden — and includes parents with children born during 2007 and 2008. By combining different sources (names, surveys and interviews) and different methods (quantitative and qualitative), this study attempts to elucidate how first names and choices of first names can be given various social meanings. In contrast to previous socio-onomastic studies, this study considers not only whether naming contains any social variation, but also how and why such variation arises. The theoretical framework is a combination of onomastic, sociolinguistic, identity-theoretical and interactional theories. The results demonstrate that parents’ choice of first names for their children is an important social act. Through name choices and discussions of these choices, parents create what is known as social positioning, which in turn contributes to the creation of certain identities both for themselves and their child. A number of resources are identified which are used by parents to create different social positionings. This study also demonstrates how both macro-societal structures and interactional aspects influence this social positioning. Finally, this study argues that the observed social variation is best explained by the parents’ desire to identify with and contribute to the creation of different models for society, in which varying social values and attributes are important.

The aim of this study has been to identify, explain and delineate praying among peasant communities in the ecclesiastical province of Uppsala, Sweden. Four aspects have been examined through the perspectives of ideals and practices, namely the standards of prayer, devotional prayer, prayer in times of need and prayer cultures. The standards of prayer considered the physical and mental behaviour of the praying peasant woman or man. The most ordinary way to act during prayer was to stand with hands together, palm against palm, and to pray in the vernacular often using mental themes to enhance the devotion. Devotional prayers were foremost the three ‘standard’ prayers Paternoster, Hail Mary and Apostolic Creed, and could be used separately or combined. Prayer in times of need was possibly considered a matter of praying to saints, something that cannot be proven to have been either practiced or recommended on other, ordinary occasions where God and the Virgin Mary were considered the proper recipients of prayer. A few authentic prayers exist that were possibly said by peasant women and men in connection with miracles and these show the ability to construct elaborate prayers and to propose businesslike agreements with saints. These three prayers were required knowledge for a peasant woman or man and were put to the test in order to become a godparent, and were therefore made available in the vernacular by the parish priests. Ways to maintain the prayer cultures were through mnemonic techniques, and indulgences stipulating and confirming prayers used or to be used in connection with certain churches, days and places within the churches. Name saints could also be used, since the person and the name saint were considered to have a special bond. Prayer could also be used as protection for the living; since a prayer was considered to generate either merits or favours from a celestial patron to his or her client. The prayer life of those belonging to peasant communities was both elaborate and full of nuances.

The aim of this study has been to identify, explain and delineate praying among peasant communities in the ecclesiastical province of Uppsala, Sweden. Four aspects have been examined through the perspectives of ideals and practices, namely the standards of prayer, devotional prayer, prayer in times of need and prayer cultures. The standards of prayer considered the physical and mental behaviour of the praying peasant woman or man. The most ordinary way to act during prayer was to stand with hands together, palm against palm, and to pray in the vernacular often using mental themes to enhance the devotion. Devotional prayers were foremost the three ‘standard’ prayers Paternoster, Hail Mary and Apostolic Creed, and could be used separately or combined. Prayer in times of need was possibly considered a matter of praying to saints, something that cannot be proven to have been either practiced or recommended on other, ordinary occasions where God and the Virgin Mary were considered the proper recipients of prayer. A few authentic prayers exist that were possibly said by peasant women and men in connection with miracles and these show the ability to construct elaborate prayers and to propose businesslike agreements with saints. These three prayers were required knowledge for a peasant woman or man and were put to the test in order to become a godparent, and were therefore made available in the vernacular by the parish priests. Ways to maintain the prayer cultures were through mnemonic techniques, and indulgences stipulating and confirming prayers used or to be used in connection with certain churches, days and places within the churches. Name saints could also be used, since the person and the name saint were considered to have a special bond. Prayer could also be used as protection for the living; since a prayer was considered to generate either merits or favours from a celestial patron to his or her client. The prayer life of those belonging to peasant communities was both elaborate and full of nuances.

How does the viewer, interact, with the on-screen narratives of film, television and computer? What new forms of interaction can be realised with the emerging narratives of CD-ROM and Internet?

This study considers screen play in terms of the game the viewer plays with audiovisual narrative, and how the viewer negotiates with a story to interpret, revise and reconstruct new stories of their own.

Aspects of game and narrative theories, cognitive psychology and phenomenology, as well as recent research in the fields of cinema, television and computer studies, are incorporated within a screen play theory, which positions the viewer both as player and storyteller. Thus, screen play can be defined as a fusion of the external screen narrative and the internal and individual scenario.

In addressing the divide between player and game ?, the mystic gulf, between viewer and narrative ? a re-assessment of early film theory plays an important part in coming to terms with the fin du siècle playground represented by the cinematographe a century ago, and the digital IT playground of the present, and an emergent narrative, in whatever form it may take.

This study discusses the tradition of ideal ageing, which emphasizes life-long virtue as an avenue to wisdom. In line with this tradition the senior members of society have been expected to take charge of and to organize their withdrawal from their social engagements, make themselves available to the younger generations needs without (openly) wanting to control them, and impart traditions without insisting that everything remain unchanged. Women have not been excluded from this tradition, but they have figured more in the margin. This is especially noticeable in the popular image of the ideal ageing man as a king in command of himself (but only in exceptional cases also in command of others).

The tradition of ideal ageing emerged during antiquity. Socrates held a central position in the formation of this set of values, Cicero’s De Senectute is a prototype of positive examples of ideal ageing, and Seneca’s texts on old age became, at the time, a model for how deterrent examples function as warnings to others. Traces of this tradition can, for example, be found in Shakespeare’s King Lear, and in texts by and about the ageing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

In the beginning of the 19th century, the tradition of ideal ageing in Swedish literature dominated the portrayals of the relationship between young and old, especially in texts by Esaias Tegnér, Erik Gustaf Geijer, and Fredrika Bremer, who all wrote at a time when a new national ideology was emerging. Some of these writers though did attempt to break with the tradition by portraying themselves in old age as passionate and perpetually young. This shows the importance of studying how individual writers, instead of regarding the tradition of ideal ageing only as a limiting norm or discourse, have used the tradition in accordance with their own interests and perspectives.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the role of Swedish literature for adolescents in the French literary scene in the early 2000s. The sociology of literature constitutes the main theoretical framework of this thesis.

Drawing from examples that broach the sensitive topic of "unprovoked violence" as it is treated in two Swedish novels for teenagers, Spelar död [Play Death] by Stefan Casta and När tågen går förbi (Train Wreck) by Malin Lindroth, this thesis shows how these novels are innovative in Even-Zohar’s sense of the term, as addressed in his Polysystem Theory (1990). By introducing "unprovoked violence" and violent teenagers via a realistic genre, such works filled a vacuum in the French system and injected a new dynamic into it. This dynamic makes it possible for new literary models to be introduced in the system and to change the standards of that system.

The analyses of the French and Swedish receptions of the two novels mentioned above show that they gave rise to a moral panic in France, which is not an unusual thing to happen in periods of ongoing change. This also clarifies the differences in norms between the two systems. The French system tends to reject dark topics, while the Swedish wishes to discuss them. The investigations of the translations of unprovoked violence show that adherence to Swedish norms determine the translation’s adequacy (Toury), which may be part of the reason for the stormy reception the two works received in France, and their undergoing censure. The position of translators and publishers in the literary system also plays a major role for a translated text not being censured during the transfer from one system to another.

Even if the Swedish titles translated into French are few, this thesis shows that the impact of Swedish literature on adolescents in France is certain. By introducing new and sensitive topics, such novels could be early markers of an evolution of the French field of literature for adolescents.